Survivor 33, Week 3 – The Generation Gap Truly Exists

Jeff Probst promised us before the season started that we would identify with the situations presented by pitting the generations against each other: Millennials vs. Gen X. He was definitely right. I found out through the show that I’m a Gen Xer, when I thought I was a Baby Boomer, but regardless of that I still would have found myself identifying with the older tribe. They are proving that they have a work ethic, while the younger tribe is proving that they’re out to have fun; however, the older tribe is having a difficult time working together, while the younger tribe is still just out to have fun.

This is still a game. It puts people in pseudo relationship situations, and they are forced to deal with it without being able to turn to others. They need to figure it out themselves. People still make the same mistakes socially on Survivor than they would in real life. David entered the game very awkward socially, and that’s how he’s still playing. He is way too paranoid and doesn’t form relationships well. And he’s not good in challenges, so he needs a social game.

However, when they held a “summit” between the two tribes with four members of each, David took the opportunity to have verbal diarrhea to those in the younger tribe. He told them he had no connections to anyone in the tribe and that once the merge came he would want to work with them and would vote off those in his tribe. He just gave away all his tribe’s secrets. If the Millennials are smart, they’ll use David to get rid of the others and then dump him. And he just turned his back on the only guy who has supported him, Ken. The Millennials were smart, though, socially and chose to keep quiet about the damaging showmance between Figgy and Taylor.

The bottom of the Gen X tribe was Ken, David, and CeCe, and everyone knew it. Yet, when it came to the challenge, she chose to not play with team unity and to go for a personal milestone instead. She needed to give up that bag and let the others take it across. She didn’t prove anything. She sunk her team further behind. That was terrible strategy on her part and horrible of the team to not work together towards getting her to work with them.

That gave them a date with Jeff at Tribal Council. CeCe looked like an easy out. But Paul, who had continually thought he was BMOC as the oldest one there, made a mistake of showing his cards to Jessica. He told her if they created a guys’ alliance, he’d let the women know.

Dumb move. Jessica is smarter than that. She realized then that the girls were in the bottom of that six-person alliance. It would be a dumb move on their part if they behaved like sheep and voted out CeCe. Right now they were a voting block, but eventually they’d be eliminated when their vote didn’t matter to the guys anymore.

She organized the women from her alliance, brought in CeCe, Bret, and David, and discussed voting off Paul. They weren’t sure if it was the right choice, but they knew they had to consider it.

At Tribal Council, the generation gap was in full display. Jeff made sure of that by discussing texting. Paul admitted he rarely texted. And all agreed they’d use the full text “you” instead of the abbreviated “u.” Nothing like technology to hammer that generation gap home. Ken took it a step further and admitted he’d rather listen to vinyl than digital music. It’s entirely possible that many of the Millennials have never even listened to vinyl.

But the final time for the Gen X tribe to display their maturity in the game was when it came to voting. They chose the smarter move and got rid of their self-appointed leader, Paul. He wasn’t good for anyone’s game but his own. This left Chris and Bret stunned, as well as Paul. Suddenly Chris and Bret are at the bottom of the tribe instead of being at the top of the six-person alliance.

That was 100% the right move for everyone on the tribe. It was the smarter play. Sure, they may not be as strong physically, but longer-term they’d be weakened in other ways with Paul instead of CeCe. Now they can reorganize. Maybe they’ll still need to vote out CeCe next time, but regardless of that, their games are all more stronger right now without Paul.

However, the Millennials couldn’t see their way to making the right choice last week and kept Figgy and Taylor together in the game, voting out Mari. Having a showmance in the game is not good for anyone, especially Jay and Michelle, the rest of their alliance. And poor Hannah made the worst decision to follow them blindly. She knew that as soon as they were back at camp and her alliance wouldn’t talk to her. She’s not going to magically be invited into the other alliance with Figgy and Taylor, and now she’s messed things up in her alliance. Zeke refused to talk to her, no matter how much she awkwardly begged him.

It’ll be interesting to see how the two tribes come along. While the younger team definitely has more physicality and more fun together, the older tribe is making all the right moves. That generation gap is alive and well.